


Walking Home

by benvoliio



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 06:47:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8276605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benvoliio/pseuds/benvoliio
Summary: college au Romeo walks Juliet back to her dorm, they talk about stuff :)(based on a dream I had once)





	

“Romeo! Wrong way!”

Romeo blinked and zoned back into the conversation. He’d been trying to remember the name of a song he’d heard at karaoke earlier at the bar, and hadn’t noticed the group had reached the road where Juliet and Rosaline usually split off for their dorm building. Since he was holding her hand, his feet had automatically gone to follow Juliet, and he was now standing awkwardly several feet apart from the rest of the boys.

He quickly dropped her hand and, blushing furiously, spun around to answer the snickering Mercutio.

“Sorry! I wasn’t thinking…”

“Oh no, Romeo,” Mercutio gave an exaggerated wink, “Of course you were thinking, and I’m sure we all know exactly what you were thinking about. You know, you two are perfectly welcome back at our place, we do have a spare bed after all— not that you’d need it.”

“That’s not— I didn't mean— You know I’m not—!” Romeo spluttered, his face almost as red as Juliet’s cardigan. He glanced at her helplessly, “That’s not at all what I was thinking, I swear!”

Juliet was blushing too, but also obviously trying not to laugh, and Romeo was relieved to see she hadn’t misinterpreted his actions.

“It’s fine, Ro, I know you didn’t mean anything. Go join the others, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No!”

Juliet’s eyes widened slightly at the outburst, and there was a moment of silence before Mercutio began howling with laughter. “Truly, our Romance Romeo will never be satisfied!”

“What…” Juliet cleared her throat, eyebrows raised, “What satisfaction could you possibly have tonight?”

Oh, wonderful. He’d done it again.

“No, I—“ He cut himself off and straightened, “I’m walking you home. Please?”

Juliet grinned, taking his hand again. “Sure.”

“But you are not setting one foot inside our building, mister, or I’ll have you arrested.” Rosaline interrupted, “God knows I hear enough about you there without you actually being in the room.”

“Rosa!” Juliet complained, “You promised not to mention it!”

“Sorry, I just feel like I’m practically dating the guy myself, with all your rambling. Romeo this, Romeo that, blah blah blah…” She trailed off into laughter as Juliet shoved her playfully. “I’ll go on ahead so you two can have some privacy. Meet you there!”

“In that case, we’ll see you later then.” Tybalt said, then added pointedly, “It does not take long to get there and back, and you will only be walking there and back, nothing more, of course.”

Romeo stammered an affirmative as Juliet rolled her eyes at her cousin. Mercutio draped an arm over Tybalt’s shoulders and the other over Benvolio’s.

“Come along then, my king of cats, my prince of shadows! Home to bed! This place is far too cold to sleep, and there will be no fourth wheel to tie us down tonight. We can finally have some fun without our lovesick friend’s boring poetry.”

“Actually, the fourth wheel is pretty important in most cases, Merc.” Benvolio pointed out, “Your ridiculous three-person tricycle is an outlier and should not have been counted. And his poems aren’t all that bad, you just think they don’t include enough sexual innuendos.”

“They don’t!”

“Thanks for the incredibly supportive words, guys.” Romeo cut in before an argument could break out, “I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“So long, loverboy!”

“Bye, Meo.”

Romeo and Juliet waved until the trio turned the corner and Mercutio’s laughter faded away. They turned and started walking slowly down the path, neither daring to look at the other. Romeo stared intensely at the stars and the half moon, the trees lining the path, and the pebbles his feet kicked up with each step, trying to think what a proper boyfriend would do next in a situation like this. He frantically searched his mind for something to say, but it was Juliet who broke the silence first.

“So, we’ve been dating for almost a month now…”

“Yeah. Yeah? Yeah we have, I guess. It’s been cool.” Romeo groaned internally. That was awful.

“So, what I’m saying is, you probably don’t have to be embarrassed about holding hands around our friends, right? And kissing. Kissing is nice. It’s not like the gang is going to rat us out or anything.”

“You want me to kiss you more?” 

“Ro, I don’t think you actually can kiss me more than you do already. I just mean it’d be nice to not do it secretly all the time.”

“I suppose, I just don't want our parents finding out. They’d blame each other and we’d never hear the end of it.” He stopped and turned to face her, “And, besides, I like kissing you secretly. It makes it more fun. Kissing you in general is fun.”

“You’re such a dork.” Juliet laughed, “If kissing me in secret is so special, why aren't we kissing right now?”

This was his moment. He knew exactly what to do, exactly what the perfect movie boyfriend would say. He took a breath, and opened his mouth to say the line that would cue the soaring strings and the rain of rose petals in a romance film.

“Maria!”

“Maria?” Juliet looked confused, “We aren’t kissing because Maria?”

Evidently, Romeo’s story was not, in fact, a romance, but a terribly scripted comedy. Or maybe a tragedy, at the rate he was messing things up.

“No! No, I just remembered! That line that’s been stuck in my head— it’s from a song called Maria. Most of the lyrics are ‘Maria,’ actually, but I just had the first line— ‘The most beautiful sound I ever heard…’ ”

“From West Side Story, yeah. I know it. How did talking about kissing make you remember that?”

“Uh, I guess… Maybe because that’s what kissing you is like. We kiss, and my brain just goes ‘Maria!’ Except it’s Juliet.”

He was making absolutely no sense and had completely ruined the moment, but there was a spark of understanding in Juliet’s eyes. A slow smile crept over her face as she began to sing quietly.

“The most beautiful sound I ever heard…”

She knew the feeling! His heart surged and he continued the tune, replacing ‘Maria’ with her name.

“Juliet! Juliet, Juliet, Juliet!”

With a laugh, she grabbed both of his hands and pulled him along.

“All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word… Romeo! Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!”

They continued along the path towards Juliet’s dorm, talking and laughing and singing at the top of their lungs. Someone had probably already called in a complaint to the campus security, but Romeo didn’t care. All he knew was that he was filled with so much love his heart should surely have burst by now, and that Juliet understood him perfectly— despite his awful, definitely not movie boyfriend-like communication skills.

True to her word, Rosaline was waiting for them outside the dorm building. She wouldn’t let Romeo inside, but she turned around so they could they share a “secret” goodnight kiss.

“Goodnight, Jules.” Romeo said quietly.  
Eyes sparkling as she pulled away from his arms, she sang, “Goodnight…”

He beamed. The college’s production of The Sound of Music had been their first official date, although only because Mercutio was in it and he had free tickets.

“Goodnight!”

Rosaline had pulled her inside the door, but her reply came drifting through all the same.

“Goodnight!”

On the way back, Romeo caught up with Mercutio, Benvolio, and Tybalt. Tybalt had essentially fallen asleep (he always got sleepy after drinking), and Benvolio was struggling to drag him along while also keeping a hold on Mercutio, who was rambling something about dreams at twice his normal volume (he always got loud after drinking). 

They managed to wake Tybalt enough to arrange a race home through the campus gardens, and on Mercutio’s slurred “Go!” they stumbled off in different directions. Despite racing two drunk boys and Benvolio, who had never really been very fast, Romeo managed to lose the race and arrived home to a wide open door and his roommates all collapsed on the spare bed. Nothing could spoil this night however, and he smiled as he got changed. Soon after sinking into the warmth of blankets, he drifted into a dream with Juliet’s name ringing sleepily in his mind.


End file.
